Empty Desks
by Enthusiastic Fish
Summary: A symbol of loss? Or a symbol of hope? It depends on who is seeing...and who is missing. Oneshot of a brief examination of a symbol.


**A/N:** I wrote this a few months ago, thinking about symbols, about how they change in meaning, even if they themselves stay the same. As deep at that might sound, this is just a short oneshot, looking at things from various points of view.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own this brilliant show. I'm not making money on the things I'm writing. I just wish I was.

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**The Empty Desks**  
by Enthusiastic Fish

There is something terribly painful about emptiness. There is something within us that cries out against the void, that wants desperately to fill it whenever it appears. The saying is that nature abhors a vacuum. Well, it's not nature. Nature couldn't care less about vacua or about matter. Nature just is. Human beings are the ones who care about filling the empty spaces. The size of the empty space doesn't matter. It can be as large as the universe...

...or it can be as small as a desk...a chair...especially when that emptiness signals a true loss that we fear can never be filled.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

How many times did I look at the desk? I don't think there's a number for it. You want to know, to put a number on it...as if that number will somehow make it more real, somehow put a price tag on your pain. Life doesn't work like that. Pain can't be quantified. Probie might want it that way, but it's not possible. He knows it. I can see it when his eyes drift over to where Kate should be sitting. Where _no one_ is sitting. That empty space that should be filled by Kate and her sarcastic jibes. I can still see her sitting there, making comments about me, about my love life. She loved doing it. We loved the banter. Sure, we both crossed the line at times, but we both loved it. It's part of who we are...were. It's a part of who we were.

I couldn't fill the space. I couldn't bring Kate back...which, of course, I knew before. I knew it the first moment, that split second when the bullet killed her...when _Ari_ killed her. That crap about bullets not killing people is...well, crap. Sure, there has to be a person holding the gun, but if Ari hadn't had that gun, those bullets, Kate wouldn't be dead. There wouldn't be this gaping hole where she should be.

There wouldn't be an empty desk...

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

It wasn't the same. I kept telling myself that it was _not_ the same. It's not. Gibbs wasn't dead...he could have been. _No_, he's not dead. Gibbs wouldn't die. He's Gibbs. That empty space at his desk didn't mean the same thing it did when Kate died. Tony kept looking at it. I could see him expecting Gibbs to be there. To be the leader...like he was supposed to be. Tony was really good at hiding it, much better than I was. I kept looking at it. I kept seeing the crime scene...where Gibbs..._almost_ died. He's not dead. _He could be_...but he's not.

I watched him come in. I watched him get off the elevator. I watched him..._not_ sit at his desk. He went up to MTAC...then...he came back down...and left his desk empty. He told me I was a good agent...and then he left. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that it could happen that way, that Gibbs would just leave.

I couldn't believe that there could be an empty desk...without someone dying.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

People come and go. I told myself that at first...when I thought that Tony had died. I was used to losing people. Loss was a part of my life. There was no reason for me to expect it to be any different...but then, there was an emptiness...even before we left MTAC, even _before_ we got to the scene. Tony felt gone. McGee tried to deny that he was dead, but I could see it. Tony was _not_ at his desk. Tony was dead. There was a hole, no matter how much everyone else tried to pretend otherwise. I had to accept that he was dead and move on.

I tried to discover when it was that I had allowed myself to become so attached to these people. It should not have been so difficult to lose him...but we hadn't lost him. My attention was distracted from...from the loss by the fact that someone _else_ had died...and suddenly there was no empty space. Even before Tony stepped off the elevator..._alive_...even before that...

I knew the desk was not empty.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Teams come and go. I tell myself that to pretend that I don't fear every day that someone on my team will leave. As I look at the empty desks, I wonder what it would be like to actually lose them all. Losing Kate was hard enough. I chose her for the team, and she paid for that choice with her life. It's like being a parent and watching your children go off to war every single day. You wonder what will come up that day that could possibly kill them. It doesn't have to change like that. I know that. Look at Stan Burley. He simply moved on. No death, no violence, just life.

I look at the empty desks and I can see them all there. Tony, with his cocky self-assurance hiding the need for appreciation. Ziva, her shell cracking just enough to let others see that she does care, that she has _always_ cared. Tim, coming into his own, but still not certain of himself, not certain of the life he's living. I look at my watch, waiting for the time when the elevator will open.

...and the desks won't be empty anymore.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

We long to fill the spaces. We long for the comfort of the space being filled. It doesn't matter whether that space is large or small. It doesn't matter what the shape of the space is. We want to fill it. We fill it with life, even when life is taken from it. We fill it with love, even if that love cannot be expressed. We fill the space...so that we can live ourselves.

We fill the space...so that there will never be an empty desk...not permanently.

FINIS!


End file.
